8.03.2009

A ho-hum puzzle for me today. Theme answers feel like they were taken out of manila folder in a gray file cabinet in a nondescript building in Utica. They're all lifeless business / office-type phrases. No pop. No sizzle. No ELAN (33A: Vigorous spirit). And wit the exception of MUTUAL FUND, none of them really trips off the tongue at all. COMMON CAUSE has nice alliteration, but it's not a phrase I encounter regularly, so the second half of it took several crosses to get. Same was true of JOINT TENANT. Overall, a blah experience.

Theme answers:

17A: Data set available to many (SHARED FILE)

9D: Property co-owner (JOINT TENANT)

25D: Unifying objective (COMMON CAUSE)

57A: Professionally managed investment type (MUTUAL FUND)

Crosswordese 101: ANIME (37A: Japanese cartoon art genre) — that's three syllables, with the final "E" getting a long A sound. What cartoons are to comics, ANIME is to MANGA (another Japanese cartoon art genre worth knowing about). A lot of ANIME is characterized by stylized, expressive, and angular art, as well as stories with adult themes (though some of the most successful ANIME shows have been aimed specifically at young children, e.g. Pokémon). People under 30 are far, far more likely to be familiar with both ANIME and MANGA, as neither became a big deal in the west until some time in the mid-late 90s. Now, the genre is as common to kids as superhero comics and Saturday-morning cartoons were to me when I was a kid. ANIME is a boon for crossword constructors, as it is 60% vowels. I have it on my short list of "21st Century Crosswordese."

What else?

49A: Wetlands growth (CATTAIL) — first, this is not a common word to me, though I can picture it now that I see it. Second, "growth" = horrid word. My first thought on seeing this clue: swamp tumor?

23D: "Don't Bring Me Down" rock gp. (ELO) — this puzzle is really deathly boring. I keep looking around for Anything to comment on and ... no. It's a Wasteland (and I can't even make a T.S. ELIOT reference because that answer is in the NYT today, not here). So instead I'll play this ELO song, which I was listening to in the car the other day, realizing I *still* didn't know what word they were saying in the chorus: "Don't bring me down ... Bruce?" OK, here's what Wikipedia says:

A common mondegreen in the song is the perception that, following the title line, Jeff Lynne shouts "Bruce!" However, according to liner notes, he is actually saying a made-up word "Grroosss". This is similar to a German word for "greeting", Gruß, possibly referring to the Bavarian greeting Grüß Gott that the group would have heard while recording the album in Munich. However, after the song's release, so many people had misinterpreted the word as Bruce that Jeff Lynne actually began to sing the word as Bruce for fun at live shows.

39A: Pointy-hatted garden statue (GNOME) — OK, I really like "pointy-hatted" as an adjective, so thumbs up there.

You know what's fun to say: RIP RIPA REPO

See you all ... I don't know when. I'm going on vacation, so it'll be a while. PG's covering for me, I think.

I love the "Barn bundle" = BALE alliteration and liked the theme. I find both COMMONCAUSE and JOINTTENANT in regular useage. Common Cause, a citizen's lobby founded in 1970 and still going strong, is a grass-roots, non-partisan organization that took its name from the old idea of "making common cause" with people and groups that agree on something but not necessarily everything. Joint tenancy should (in the sense of it's worth your while to know this stuff) be an idea familiar to anyone who who owns property or bank accounts with another person. If the property or accounts are titled in "joint tenancy" the co-owner automatically inherits. In other words, if you hold a vacation property with a sibling as joint tenants and expect to leave your half of the property to someone other than your sibling, you probably can't. There are many different ways to title property and each way has a different set of implications. Looking at all this once in a while cuts down on the Surprise! factor when it's too late to do anything.Enjoy your vacation Rex. Thanks for this wonderful blog.

My family still teases me about my own personal mondegreen in an Elton John favorite. Until I saw the name of the song in writing, I thought he was singing P-P-P-Penny and the Jets with electric boobs and mohair suits!

Tough puzzle today what exactly is a CLIP JOINT? I didn't know that Emu's lay green eggs and OATMEAL in haggis, makes sense I suppose. I had DDT where PAM was the answer....oh sorry wrong puzzle, this is the Newsday one right?

So I wake up today and get my Birmingham News from the front yard to find that they've changed the crossword puzzle from the LAT to some crackerjack boring puzzle!! What a crappy way to start the day off! How do I get the LAT puzzle online? I can't go without my LAT and this awesome blog another day!

@eddieq Two ways: go to The L.A. Times site or go to cruciverb.com and access it there. The L.A. Times site uses an applet and is not forgiving if you click outside the puzzle -- all your work is gone. On cruciverb.com, you need the AcrossLite application which is available on the N.Y. Times web site. In both cases, you can get help or not, or you can print out the blank puzzle and solve with pen as you used to do on the newspaper copy. Either way, it's worth the effort to get a quality puzzle. The puzzle is available in the Archives section of cruciverb at 7:00 p.m. Pacific time, or at 11:00 p.m. Pacific time on the L.A. Times site. It helps to have both available in case one is having troubles (cruciverb had a real problem over the weekend, and the only available puzzle was on the L.A. Times site).

Caribbean island resort (Aruba)? Aruba is the island. On the island there are resorts, none of which are called "Aruba" to my knowledge. So how is Aruba the answer to Caribbean island resort? If it had just said Caribbean Island, ok, but it didn't. Am I missing something here? Is it just me, or are those kinds of clues annoying?

Just got back from the office supply store -- a trip for printer ink (major sticker shock as usual), then I was able to print out the puzzle. Quick solve on this one; nothing gave me much trouble. I had HECKLE before HARASS and initially spelled OCHER as OCHRE. I was especially pleased with the shoutout to my favorite entertainer The Divine Miss M (BETTE), the epitome of ÉLAN.

Good Monday-level puzzle with nice variety in the theme and fill.@RP: enjoy your R&R!